Christmas Surprises
by QueenY C
Summary: Sometimes, the best Christmas gift is the reminder that you are loved. A Heartbeat-Universe one-shot.


**Story: Christmas Surprises**

**Author: QueenyC**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones or any of the charters or locations affiliated with it. If I did, I'd be doing more with them then posting stories in fan fiction.**

**A/N: Hello again, all and Happy Holidays to my wonderful readers! This little one-shot in the Heartbeat-Universe just popped into my head this morning and I thought I'd share ('tis the season, after all)! Leave me a review and tell me what you think!**

**Christmas Surprises**

"_Hey, it's me. I know you're in meetings all afternoon I just...I finally got confirmation on the next flight out. I'll be catching a seven p.m. Delta. I probably won't be arriving at Dulles until after ten so don't...don't worry about picking me up. I'll catch a cab home. I love you, Booth. Give Joy a kiss goodnight from me."_

Booth smiled sadly as he listened for the fifth time to his wife's dejected voicemail. She'd never been very good at fooling him but he figured even a stranger could hear the strain of her voice over the phone line. As for him, he could literally feel her pain washing through him with each word she spoke. It was Christmas Eve, the first one she'd ever spent away from Joy, and he knew it was killing her.

She'd gotten the call a week ago, the Canadian ministry had requested her assistance with identification when three mummified bodies were discovered during a foundation dig on a new housing development. Booth couldn't go because of previous plans with Parker and she'd be on her own for the duration. One of his fellow agents had given him hell about letting her take the assignment, but Booth knew enough to know he'd never 'let' Brennan do anything. She had always made her own decisions.

She'd accepted on the promise that she would be home by Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, after a long, difficult week dealing with sloppy technicians and sub-par facilities, she'd found herself delayed at the airport for nearly 36 hours when she should've been home drinking cocoa and wrapping presents with him.

"Daddy, when will Mommy be home," His six-year-old called in the back seat, kicking her slippered feet adorably. Despite his wife's instructions not to do so, Booth and his daughter were on their way to pick her up from the airport. He knew Brennan would feel better the second she wrapped her arms around their little girl.

Booth glanced at the LED clock on his dash and grinned. "In about an hour," he told his daughter.

Joy nodded thoughtfully. "Does Mommy know we're coming?"

"Nope," Booth replied, having learned long ago that his little girl was very much like her mother and required pointed, matter-of-fact answers. He grinned and caught Joy's brilliant blue eyes in the review mirror, "We're gonna be her Christmas surprise," he added with a wink.

Joy gave a toothy smile at that. "Do you know how airplanes stay up, Daddy," she asked, changing the subject now, her brain moving at an incredible pace.

"How," He asked with no doubt in his mind that he was about to get an explanation far beyond the normal almost-seven-year-old.

"Because of lift," Joy told him in her best impression of her mother.

"And what is lift?"

Joy smiled, "It's the force to holds the airplane up when it goes against the wind."

"And where did you learn that," Booth asked, still amazed sometimes by his brilliant little girl.

"Parker told me," Joy said with an authoritative nod, "He's very smart."

Booth chuckled. "It's a family characteristic," Booth agreed, thinking of his wife, who, though she was not Parker's biological family, had helped to foster his love of learning since he was a child.

Joy nodded her agreement. "Know what else he told me?"

"What?"

"I have two-hundred-and-_six_ bones in my body."

"Really," Booth asked with feigned surprise because that at least was something he'd been told more than once in the past decade or so.

"Yep. Know what else?"

"What?"

You do too!"

"I do?"

Joy nodded. "Neat, huh, since you're so much bigger and _older_?"

Booth grimaced, "_Older_," He whined. "Did your mother tell you to say that?"

Joy threw her head back in a fit of giggles in response.

**~B*B~**

Brennan was exhausted.

Beyond exhausted even.

It had been a long, hard week, made more difficult by the time away from her family. She'd spoken to Booth and Joy every night before climbing into her empty hotel bed, but talking wasn't enough. It reminded her sadly of all the years she'd spent before Booth and after her parents disappearance. A long stretch of holidays where she didn't even know she was lonely until she'd been faced with what it was like to fee loved again.

The second she stepped out of the airplane terminal she fished her cell phone out of her pocket and began dialing her voicemail, hoping that Booth had been thoughtful enough to let Joy leave a goodnight message while she'd been on the flight. She frowned when she found none waiting for her. She hadn't spoken to her husband since that morning and was feeling the cold sting of a Christmas Eve spent alone in the airport.

She shook the thought from her head. It wasn't fair of her to be disappointed. She'd agreed to the request despite Booth's suggestion that she tell them to wait until after the holidays or to find another anthropologist.

Brennan, if she was being honest, had been feeling the call of her career deep in her heart. Joy had fulfilled parts of Brennan she'd never even known existed, but she also missed being the unrivaled professional she'd once been. Already she'd cut back her hours at the Jeffersonian, working cases with Booth but only putting in about half the time she normally would've with the bodies in Bone Storage in lieu of cozy evenings with her husband and child. She'd given up digs that would take her too far or for too long, letting the positions go to young hopefuls like her interns instead. She'd started to wonder if you she could actually have it all, if it was worth giving up a bit of her glory to become a mom, a wife, things she'd never even known she wanted.

If anything good had come of this past week, it was the resolute knowledge that it was most certainly worth it. Joy was worth it. Booth was worth it. The life they shared together, it was worth anything. She would gladly lay down her career for them, as assuredly as she'd give up her life.

"Mommy," a small child's voice called into the throng of off-boarding passengers and Brennan's heart clenched painfully. It had sounded so much like her own little girl.

"Mommy," the girl shouted again, closer, and this time Brennan paused, certain that there was no voice quite like this one. She looked around wildly, feeling one part foolish and one part hopeful.

And then she saw it, a blur of familiar auburn curls colliding with her knees.

"Joy," she gasped in shock, her head spinning around like a periscope and catching the warm, brown eyes of her husband a few feet away.

Brennan grinned appreciatively, dropping her bags without further ceremony and scooping her little girl up into her arms. Joy was still wearing her red Christmas dress from evening mass and smelled like spices and cinnamon and home. Feeling unabashed tears drip down her cheeks, Brennan hugged her daughter tightly to her and rested her forehead against Joy's.

"Mommy, why are you crying," Joy whispered softly, threading her arms around her mother's neck in reassurance.

"I missed you, Happy Girl," Brennan replied softly, stroking the long locks of her daughter's hair affectionately.

"I missed you too," Joy sighed, her voice full of contentment. "So did Daddy," she added. "He said we were your Christmas surprise, but I think you were his present."

"You're too smart for your own good," Booth's voice chuckled, having heard his daughter's quiet tattling. Brennan looked up at the sound of his voice, her heart squeezing painfully at the sheer, overwhelming joy of having her family show up unexpectedly after such a bad day.

"Hi," Booth said softly, his face breaking into a warm, relieved grin.

"Hi," Brennan grinned back as her husband reached forward to brush away the tracks of her tears. "You came anyway?"

"You know I always show up when you need me, Bones," he told her gently, winking at his daughter who gave an appreciative giggle.

"That's true," Brennan nodded. "You'll be happy to know that I've decided I'm not accepting any requests between November and February ever again."

Booth chuckled. "Is that so?"

Brennan nodded resolutely. "Yes. And don't try to talk me out of it," she teased. "You know how hard it is to change my mind once I've decided something."

"Fair enough," He smiled. "Merry Christmas, Bones." Booth leaned forward to kiss her tenderly.

Brennan sighed in relief as he pulled slowly away, her heart lighter than it had been in days. "Merry Christmas, Booth."


End file.
